The Cecafa senior men’s Challenge Cup is back on the table after a five year-hiatus mainly due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Last held in Uganda back in 2019, the regional tournament returns in July and officials are now confident that it is back to stay. Zanzibar was recently confirmed as the host nation for the competition which leads a host of CECAFA football activities lined up on the 2024 calendar. Times Sport caught up with Andrew Jackson Oryada, the CECAFA Head of PR and Communications, as he threw more light on the forthcoming tournament and what CECAFA had in store for the region in 2024. Cecafa men's Senior Challenge Cup is back! Why did it take so long? You know when covid came in, the challenges were worldwide...so hosting some of these tournaments during covid19 time was not easy. Cecafa is working hard so that we have as many tournaments as possible to give both boys and girls more platforms to nurture their talents. Last year, we had five tournaments but this year we are having six tournaments. The very good thing about this year is that the senior challenge cup is back. It was last hosted in Uganda in 2019 and now we are having it in 2024. It speaks volumes because, when we were having the General Assembly in Mombasa on February 23, 2024, Zanzibar said they are so happy that the challenge cup is back because, for them, they are just associate member of CAF and cannot play AFCON qualifiers so the Cecafa Challenge Cup is like a world Cup for them, it means so much to them. The challenge cup is good because it brings the top teams in the region to compete against each other. The zone is thinking of inviting guest teams so as to spice things up and bring more competitiveness to the challenge cup. ALSO READ: Rwanda returns to Cecafa Challenge after seven-year hiatus Do we know the dates yet? The tentative dates are all I can say because sometimes we set the dates but then the host nation will make some changes and it will become another challenge. For example, the [senior men’s] challenge cup which will be the first tournament on the calendar is supposed to be around July because we have sponsors who are our broadcast partners Azam, they think that is the best time to have that tournament. The senior challenge cup is supposed to take place from July 6-2. The tentative date for Cecafa girls tournament was June 15 but host nation Ethiopia has requested the competition to take place in November because of the rains in the country. The schools championship in Zanzibar will take place in the first week of December between 4th and 7th. The CAF women's Champions League Cecafa zine qualifier in Ethiopia are also due from August 17 to September 1. AFCON U20 boys qualifiers will take place from October 5-19 in Tanzania and the U17 boys zonal qualifiers in Uganda from December 15-29. These are proposed dates but there could be some slight changes. The senior men’s challenge cup has not taken place since 2019. How much has this hiatus affected regional football? The fact that we have not had the tournament for long has not given our teams a chance to play as many games as possible so it even affects how we play during AFCON qualifiers. The countries believe that if we have the challenge cup back it will help us because the AFCON is coming to our zone in 2027 so by the time we get to 2027, our teams should have played more competitive games for the coaches to try as many players as possible because we have many players in this zone and not all of them get the chance to play at competitive level. Do you think East African teams have gone some steps back since the competition was suspended? Every country in the zone has different challenges. There are some countries where their players have become much older and the younger ones haven't matured enough. If you look at Uganda, for example, they had a great group of players such as Denis Onyango and they were together for a long time. When those ones retire there are young players who are trying to come in. So, you can't expect the younger players to perform the way the senior ones were performing. Many of the teams in our [CECAFA] zone are really building and I am hopeful come 2027 that teams within our zone will have prepared very well and give a good show. We are very positive because member associations are bringing in experienced coaches, and they are playing more games. I can see Rwanda and Burundi going to Madagascar to play international friendlies. Teams are trying as much as possible to expose their players to competitive games which is very important because it is hard to improve a team when they are not playing competitive games. Five years have been long to bring the challenge cup back but the other problem is there has also been a busy calendar, sometimes there is no place to put the tournament as the calendar is loaded. Now, going forward, the tournament is back and it is good news for the region, but can you say it is going to happen consistently? Yeah, that is what the zone has agreed to. We agreed that this tournament should be consistent, it is back now. The people have been missing it because the challenge cup has a different vibe. When it resumes this year, we are hopeful it continues without a break. We want to see many member associations be ready to host it because sometimes hosting a competition is a problem.
